


We Endure

by Erring_and_umming



Category: Spies Are Forever - Talkfine/Tin Can Brothers
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Fix-It of Sorts, Heavy Angst, M/M, Maybe Too Seriously, Not A Fix-It, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Swearing, Vampires, Vingettes, like so dramatic, o ye and vampires, some fluff as a treat, yeah can you believe it?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-25 19:00:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30093639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erring_and_umming/pseuds/Erring_and_umming
Summary: Curt Mega has made a mistake, as he has done countless times throughout the centuries. He shouldn't have gotten close and now he's going to have to face to the consequences that may just kill him.
Relationships: Barb Larvernor/Tatiana Slozhno (Mentioned), Owen Carvour/Agent Curt Mega
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Look at this English Prat

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Kill of the Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21008582) by [stargate-ruiner (purpleplanet)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/purpleplanet/pseuds/stargate-ruiner). 



> Hey so remember how I was like "I'm really busy for the next few days" in the last chapter of OAEP (Of an Eastern Persuasion https://archiveofourown.org/works/29812452/chapters/73347075) 
> 
> WELL I didn't sleep at all last night! (amazing) So I wrote this. 
> 
> Also this is inspired by 'Kill of the Night' by an amazing author named: stargate-ruiner (purpleplanet). The link to their story is somewhere in here. But seriously check it out!
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8tGCVavS5s (also this song goes VERY WELL with this fic. Just saying)

Dying was an art form. Some had the chops – the ability to give a death so dramatic Curt’s dormant heart would swoop and swoon at the sight. Delighting in the beauty of it, ashamed for the smiles they produced upon his face. Drama didn’t always mean loud and showy – not that loud and showy didn’t have its merits – but sometimes, the most exquisite of deaths were the quiet ones full of smiles and sighs for loved ones. Others gurgled, and their lights snuffed themselves quicker than they should’ve done, leaving him dissatisfied. Some just dragged on and on.

You would think that, when you die, your life flashes before your eyes, but in his experience, that was all hogwash made up by some fiction writer in their basement somewhere. You really just shit yourself in fear, or you don’t know it’s coming. Then you’re gone, a stitch taken from the weave. And for that reason – among a few – he was pretty sure God couldn’t exist – the world wasn’t big enough for them both – and no matter how many times people called for his presence, he never came for them. But Curt did.

When he first met Owen, he was surprised by the agent’s response. He was an outlier – for a human at least. In the neon-lit alley, to the sounds of the throbbing music, he cut a striking shadow in to the alley – body tense and waiting. The warmth radiating from him was a ruby bath Curt could not wait to slip in to. 

“Mega?” he had asked, and a wooden stake fell into his grasp from his sleeve – lightning quick. It cuts through the air and right into the tiny place in the center of Curt’s chest where he buried a long-forgotten fear.

Curt was, admittedly, not expecting that. He started, drawing himself back a step, his leather shoe landing in a stagnant puddle with a pathetic splash.

“That’s your name, right?” Owen, a stranger then, took another step forward, hands out and open and pale green under the lights that made him look sickly. “Curt Mega. I’m with MI6; they told me you were in the area. Look, I don’t want any trouble with A.S.S., and I think we’re after the same guy? You work for them, right? I’m not just talking to some— ha! It’s not like we can get a picture of you! But you know I assumed with the whole dark and shadowy thing. How about we work together on this one and you…you know don’t—”

And Curt realised he technically wasn’t allowed to kill this guy, despite his hanging around with his mark.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

* * *

Now, Curt had been around for a while – he wouldn’t tell anyone how long, which really was his right.

But Owen often asked, more than most would.

During stakeouts.

“When did you die?”

At cafes.

“How did you die?”

Running from enemy agents.

“Come on, dear! Just tell me how old you—” He ducked out of the way of a stray bullet. “Fuck! How old you are! Jesus Christ, that was close.”

Out at the bar.

“So, you can still drink? Can you eat? Does that come with age or…?”

_Damn him to hell; it was annoying. But spies tended to be naturally curious._

One particular evening in Budapest, the two were drinking in a lavish hotel, celebrating a mission well done. Owen was sprawled out on the plush carpet of Curt’s room, hair askew in a dark halo and face splotched red with drink. He was running his fingers through the fibres of the rug with a contented sigh. Curt’s head was swimming – he’d had a lot to drink. Trust me, Jesus had he had a lot to drink.

Owen writhed for a moment, child-like, with a grin before his body went quickly slack, face smoothing from its scrunching into a pale lake of calm.

“Curt…?”

He hummed, looking up from inspecting his nails, picking dried flecks of blood from under them. They flaked to the ground, fluttering eddies that looked like old nail polish rather than the remains of a person.

“Does it hurt?” Owen whispered, with dinner plate eyes that sucked him straight in. _He was meant to be the hypnotist, for Christ’s sake._

“Does what hurt?” Curt asked with a roll of his eyes. 

“Being alive.”

Ah. Sighing, Curt got up off the couch and lowered himself onto the ground; running his fingers along the carpet he realised, it was very nice. Turned out MI6 was good for something.

“Owen,” his name was syrup, difficult to push out but sweet upon his tongue. “Of course it does. It hurts for everyone.”

He laid down next to Owen, so their heads were level with each other; both of them were looking at the ceiling, ornate in an art deco style. Curt thought it was hideous, but it was nice to be sharing the view.

“Oh,” Owen breathed.

“Don’t worry about it,” Curt said, still running his fingers through the carpet.

“I think I’ll always worry about it, dear.”

The carpet dragged against the back of his head as he turned to look at Owen. The man was beautiful – objectively – scarred and smooth, a tale of skin and hurt. Touched by time. Curt could really only dream of such things.

“You shouldn’t,” The shush of hair against the softness of the carpet caught Curt’s attention as Owen faced him, a frown marring his features. Curt couldn’t be having that. He continued, “because I got to meet Shakespeare.”

The perfect O of Owen’s mouth was worth it.

“You’ve got to be _kidding me._ ”

* * *

Today was a bad day. A terrible fucking day.

Cuba! Hot and sweaty and everything that he hated. The umbrella over his head only just protected him from the harsh, _unlife threatening_ rays and caused Owen to laugh at him and yank on the umbrella. Deep warm chortles caused the calcified heart in his chest to flip.

Oh yeah, that was a new thing.

People were gathered in a horde, swaddling them in hot bodies, the streets swelling and undulating with life. To his shame, Curt’s whole body ached for it, a marrow-deep want that clawed and the inside of his skin – tearing at the slivers of humanity that he had laid across his skin with care. The thump and thrum of them were swiftly becoming overwhelming, drowning him in the current of humanity.

“Curt? You there, love?”

Curt blinked, dragging himself, with some effort, from the trance. “Huh?”

“Jesus Christ. We talked about this! Come on.”

And Owen was dragging him away from the crowd by the crook of the elbow, leading him through the streets to air that was void of humanity’s cloying allure. Owen was muttering to himself all the while.

“No idea why you even do this job. So _stupid._ You should be up in a castle somewhere in fucking Romania or whatever they’re calling it these days. Not in Cuba of all places. You geriatric piece of work! Why would Cynthia even send you here? Does she want you to burst into flames…”

The muttering continued, but Curt could only smirk at the back of the man’s head and let the familiar wings of affection unfurled in his chest.

* * *

Russia was more his style. The people were essential exactly like him, just…shorter-lived and more inclined to solids than he was.

Unfortunately, Owen hated it in Moscow, and so, Curt had taken it upon himself to hate it too. They were partners, after all.

However, even more unfortunate was the fact that Owen was bleeding on their floor – in a Rorschach of his own lifeblood.

Curt was huddled in the corner, knees drawn up to his chest, and, possibly even more unfortunate, was the undeniable fact that Owen’s prostrate body was in the way of the door.

There was no escape. To even attempt to move past, Owen would surely be the cause of the human’s death.

“C-Curt?” Owen’s voice was rough, and he hacked out a cough spitting blood onto the ground that looked more like soft flesh masticated into strange shapes. Curt stared at it, drawn to the splatter of crimson.

“Don’t Owen, don’t talk to me right now,” Curt grit out, fingers furrowed through his hair, tugging and pulling to keep himself grounded. _He wouldn’t._

“You won’t. Come on now…love, you need to get me the first aid kit. It’s just a nick, okay? I won’t die. Right? It’s in the bathroom, right next to you, just there. Get it.”

Curt shook, shuddering like a leaf in the wintertime.

“Curt! Get it now!”

And like some sort of off switch, Curt was moving, crawling around the floor away from temptation that yanked him back like a river rapid. The bathroom was wavering in crimson eddies. The bright whites caught him in a web, and Curt’s hands weren’t his as they fumbled around without his need to tell them to. They curled around the small kit, and he threw it to Owen from the bathroom, not trusting himself to move an inch further.

He got into the bath; the cool of the white ceramic held him, encasing him in a shell as he curled in on himself once more. Teeth gritting painfully, he shuddered; each wave caused him to groan; he could feel each atom of himself singing and twitching – the siren song calling and calling and calling.

He was breaking apart.

This is why he never got close to anyone.

He didn’t even hear the distant ‘thank you’.

* * *

“If I ever die,” Curt sucked in a useless breath as Owen turned to him, all open and moon-faced. “or if I get so injured that there’s no way I survive. You’ll save me, right?”

They were sitting in a dark car, looking out onto the streets of Paris tinted in grey-gold from the streetlamps. The whole city was holding its breath – silent. The mission was forgotten for a moment.

“I—”

“I mean, what will you do without me, love?” Owen asked, smile all crooked and warm, the shadows catching in the dark hollows of his eyes. He already looked half-dead, but then, all humans did – always marching – always dying.

“Owen…”

“Curt. I’m serious,” Owen looked down at his hands, knitting and unknitting his knuckles.

“Do you remember Moscow?”

“Of course, I remember Moscow. I’m a human, not a dunce, dear.”

Curt paused for a moment, considering his words with drawn-out care. “Do you remember…how you found me? The morning after.”

Swallowing, Owen gave a shaky nod. Both of them remembered, with a crystallised clarity despite their multiple attempts at forgetting. Beasts and men had much in common – genetically. But Curt was, at points, melded to the ways of base creatures – despite his frantic attempts to deny it.

The bathroom door had to be replaced.

Curt closed his eyes and sighed, letting the dark calm him for a moment. “It’s that. It just…it just came to the surface, and I couldn’t fight it off. But it’s like that all the time – like a duck, you know? All smooth on top but furiously paddling underneath. I don’t want that for you. It’s a horror, to stay alive like this.”

“Do you get to decide? Isn’t that my choice?”

“There is beauty in death, Owen. I promise you, this life – if you could call it that – isn’t beautiful. If I were the one to turn you, I think I get to have a say.”

“But then you wouldn’t have to be alone.”

Curt opened his eyes at that; he gazed at the tiny pinpricks of water on the windscreen that caught and refracted the light, casting tiny shining diamonds across the glass, leaving golden freckles upon Owen’s face.

“I think I would rather be alone.”

Both men knew it to be a lie. The way Curt’s voice sunk into the falsehood, deep and gruff, catching on the vowels. Owen’s softened, and a smile wound its way across his lips.

“You’re a terrible liar, love.”

And then, warmth upon lips that he had not felt in years, the slide of skin and teeth and a smirk that could fell nations if it wanted to and the smell of bergamot and cigarettes—all upon him.

Curt melted, but he never gave his answer.

* * *

The next few years floated by on the tides of bliss. He laughed when Owen found his first grey hair; he swooped dramatically through the apartment, like some kind of bird, squawking and chattering. It was all too much for him, and he rolled about upon the floor, guffaws rattling his body. Once he was finished, the laughs finally drawn out of him and his ribs aching, he looked up, and Owen was smiling, warm and easy. He bent down and kissed him.

They went across the world, shadows that barely touched the earth who only needed each other – who left bloody footprints in their wake all in the name of country for some and guilt for others.

They held each other through the storm of McCarthy, who bathed America in purple and red and the Cambridge Five that sent MI6 into a tailspin. They held each other behind closed doors, and they held each other when they were interviewed over and over again, test after test, psych after psych, waiting for a trip up that would send them into exile. They sent letters under different names and kissed when they were able and laughed when neither felt like it, just for the comfort of the sound.

But things aren't really built to last; if anyone knew it, it was Curt – the thing that lasted. And the warmth of Owen’s fire was flickering.

They were back in Russia, and Curt was tied to a chair; his body ached, pounding and weak, it had been days since his last drink – his throat was dry, scratching and needy – he brushed it off for the moment as he was about to get tortured. Brilliant.

Slipping in and out of consciousness, he barely heard the taunts and jeers and commands to a man named Oleg. He battered the scrawny man off with relative ease.

“Personal history does have it’s benefits, Mega.”

And there was Owen, there to save him again.

The moments passed like water, flowing around him but not touching him, his hunger-addled mind barely catching the moments as they flittered by. Owen handed him a banana as if that would do anything other than fill a void, but it did nothing to slack the hunger or the feebleness of his body. They both knew it, but there was little else to do.

He was stupid. There was no denying it. This was it.

Owen fell, down and down and twisting and crunching upon the concrete, body broken – head bloodied – limbs a grotesque mess – a dancer’s final repose. Curt could smell him, the cloying allure that had haunted his waking nightmare since he had met the man who smiled and didn’t think he was a monster. Who read him poetry like some dirty beatnik. Who dreamed of a better world and danced around kitchens across the globe but always to a Fats Domino record, no matter where they were.

This was written and would always be.

Death sometimes was not beautiful.

Death was a bastard, but it was better than the alternative.

…

Curt ran.

* * *

He ran and drank and fucked and died and died all over again and held the stake before himself with hands that shook and thought and swam and sank to the bottom of the ocean and cried and died again.

He didn’t want to die.

Owen wouldn’t want to see him.

* * *

A waking nightmare.

That’s always it. There’s nothing more to unlife than dreams that invade reality, suffuse themselves into each vision until the boundary between the mind and the world becomes a sliver. When you can’t sleep, when all you can do is watch your lover dream and wish to join them. Everything is unreal in the unlife. Skirting around the edges of humanity, the edges of sanity, instead of in it.

This was not a dream. He had been slapped out of it.

“You promised!” Owen seethed, and the gun sat between them, heavy with accusations and abhorrence and spite spite spite.

The man was a shade of his former self so twisted by hate, a nightmare, maybe a sweet dream. This couldn’t be his Owen. This was the monster Curt had refused to make him.

“I didn’t promise anything,” the words were quiet, but they hurt, dragging themselves through his lips in fiery tongues. Curt looked to the gun’s ‘o’ of a mouth. “You know that won’t stop me.”

“It will slow you down,” Owen replied, moving it, so it sat between his eyes.

“Our team are destroying your island facility as we speak. Your surveillance network is fried. They’ll be no encore tonight…for you.”

Owen smirked, an ugly thing that tore at his face, leaving the new scars to burrow into his cheeks. “Perhaps you’ve destroyed that island facility, but what of the others. My dear, you’re stuck in the past, so blinded by that life just unfolds in front of you.”

“There’s more?” Curt asked.

“How does it feel to know you’ll never catch up with us? No matter the years you have spent crawling about this earth from the _pit_ you came from,” Owen spat.

Curt’s heart surely started to beat in a panic at his ex-partner’s words. “Owen…it’s not too late to fix this. If you agree to give up Chimera, I’m sure the agency can pull some strings—”

Owen’s voice was beastly as he yelled, “You still don’t see! Do you, Curt? There won’t be any agency to go back to once the system is online! Nothing for you to hide behind anymore!” He was panting, breath condensating between them in swirling clouds.

Calm is what was needed, de-escalation. Curt could do that, he steeled himself; shifting on his feet carefully, he looked up to Owen, the man caught in a halo of smoking white.

“Think of the missions we served, the lives we saved, the impact we had on this world – together. Two of the greatest spies to ever live. Now you look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t believe that we’re making a difference!” Curt urged.

“I don’t think you have room to speak on such matters, Curt. How many people did you have to kill to survive, to save those ‘innocents’, how many do you still slaughter? The agency is just an _excuse_ for you. Do your little friends know about what you are?” Owen barked out a laugh. “Of course not! You’re an animal, Curt, unable to move forward and let go. But I’ve created fire, and the beasts fear it!”

The words stung, to hear them fall from Owen’s lips cut into him, and Curt stuttered, “I-I’ll stop you.”

“You’ll do your best…once a spy, always a spy, _forever…”_ Their eyes met on the words, understanding passing between them, profound, gut-wrenching certainty of the end. “whatever, the warmest hello to the coldest goodbye. Remember…I remember. Spies never die. A new world awaits us, Curt. A world without agencies, a world without spies. A world without shadows. A world without _secrets._ What will the world do when they know of your kind, huh? They’ll tear you apart and leave you for the sun!”

Sickened, Curt pushed forward; stepping towards his lost love, he whispered, “Some secrets aren’t yours to share. What about our secret? The time we shared, the feelings _we had_ for each other. Are you ready to share that with the world?”

“That secret died the night you left me for dead.”

There was no real recognition, the stutter did not dive into the depths of the emotions that they shared. Curt couldn’t be surprised. And he couldn’t really blame Owen; humans were mutable, changeable and shifting, always marching towards the sun. He, on the other hand, would never change. Owen had burrowed into the heart that lay still in his chest.

“Clearly,” Curt said.

Owen smirked, “Here’s some advice, Curt. It’s called moving on. Do give it a try.”

Moving in a blur Curt knocked the gun from Owen’s hand with a clatter.

“You know killing me won’t take the system offline, so…what are you doing?”

“Taking your advice.”

Curt didn’t have a gun on him.

The world blotted crimson anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's what it is and that's that. I need to go back to my readings now and like...job applications!
> 
> There are two ends to this story. This end and the one I'm going to post in the next chapter! You can stop here if you don't like fix-its. But this is AS CLOSE as I'll get to a fix-it because I find them DIFFICULT!
> 
> Kudos and comments feed everything I make but really I'm just glad you're reading this! Take care of yourselves!


	2. Look at this English Prat (Pt. 2)

* * *

It was a horrible day for a funeral. Sunny and bright, with birds chirping and squirrels chattering in the trees. The wind tickled at his skin and caught his hair within its grip, tousling it about and pulling upon his umbrella.

Owen had wanted to be burnt, apparently. Curt had never read his will.

He wasn’t in it.

Which was fair enough.

There weren’t many people there. Tatiana and Barb stood by his side, hands clasped together in a tight grip.

Good for them, he supposed.

They didn’t have a priest. They didn’t have mourners. Owen’s family was dead, and his friends believed him to be a turncoat.

They weren’t wrong about that.

So, the three of them stood on a hill in Suffolk that overlooked verdant hills scrolling towards the blue horizon.

Curt muttered a few words that fell flat upon the ground in a dead heap – they didn’t really mean anything, and they did not speak of the breadth of his relationship with Owen. Words were useless. So was the dust that caught itself in the air and danced away into Owen’s homeland.

Death really could, sometimes, be beautiful.

At some point, Tatiana and Barb left.

The sun settled to sleep.

But Curt remained awake in the nightmare, in his solitude upon that hill.

The crunch of footsteps, like the shattering of dry bone and the whispering of rust-breath, did not rouse him.

A shadow cut itself across the full moon hung in the sky, fat like a ripe summer fruit. The shadow laughed, taking the shape of a man, drawing itself into the illusion.

“What a performance, love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you believe I wrote a vampire AU? Cause I can. Vampires are so angsty and I love that. Also I think this fic hurt me as much as writing Carcinogenic (which is just OOFT, still really painful to think about) 
> 
> AND what did I fix? NOTHING. This is still sad dammit.
> 
> I'd love to know which ending you liked better if you read both? You can comment and have a yarn!


End file.
